


Rewind for a Butterfly

by MorriganFearn



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood and Injury, Misogyny, Multi, Time Travel, hemocasteism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-07
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2018-02-07 22:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1916046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorriganFearn/pseuds/MorriganFearn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are a thousand things that could be done to prevent Lord English’s arrival. The Handmaid tries all thousand and then a few more, before she changes her mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rewind for a Butterfly

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the rough draft that I wrote for Team Ancestors' Main Round 1 entry in the 2014 HSWC. Thank goodness Spockandawe got it pulled together in a more respectable form, and all the great team artists gave it life. This is being posted for the curious to see what was going on behind the scenes, as it were.

**> Enter**

There are many worlds, and many realities. It's something the Boss never grasped. Or rather he grasped them all and chewed, raging when one stuck in his throat and demanding that the past living, past dying Cue Ball sort it out, because the Time Lord did not get on well with his Handmaid, but she could visit with the lolipop head any time she was ordered to, which invariably led to her wiping up the universal dribble coursing down his green jawbone in the most metaphorical way possible. Even if the task afterward was gruesome, she loved the _hurkking_ sound of the Boss choking on a possibility. There always was a chance that he might die this time, which pleased her from the tips of her toes to the curl of her horns. It was almost worth having to clean up the drool.

After the latest binge, a little more damage had been done than usual, and Cue Ball took her aside with a laundry list of things that had to happen, and instructions on how to do it.

**> Accidentally toss instructions into the void**

The Handmaid floated content over writhing blackness, watching terrors of the unknown at the end of the universe rip into the sad little sheet of white with its sad white letters that could only be read against the light of the sun, anyway. Still, punishment would come like the hammer of a vengeful godtier if she did nothing, so she had better make a choice about what to do next.

**> Look Busy. Make the Archerdictator weep for days (Signless Quest, part one)**

**> Be the narrator. Destroy the Pir8 Queen (Pirate Quest, part one)**

**> Follow and Obey the Boss. Make the Rebellion happen (Summoner Quest – currently a dead end)**

* * *

**(You chose: > Look Busy. Make the Archerdictator weep for days)**

She appeared in a crowd of soldiers, the deadly bolts between their fingers the traditional, and entirely ceremonial, metal variety. That was, they were ceremonial in the sense they would never be used in warfare even this soon after the landdweller subjugation. Even for ceremonial things, if they had been made traditional by trolls, as the Handmaid had observed, they would have to be effectively violent.

The soldiers stood at the back of the massive form of an E%ecutor, who was preparing the next flight of his deadly bolts, apparently heedless of the screaming of one prisoner, shackled to the pain pillar. Under the stars and moons the crowd swelled and brayed for blood. In the Grand Pavilion with its outrageous colors, the carnival was in full swing. Through it all, the E%ecutor selected his arrow, almost as though he was alone, rather than the center of chaos. Only once did he betray any awareness of a world outside his own, looking, as he drew the arrow to the string, from the caged and shackled prisoners to the keening sufferer at the base of the pillar, and then finally toward the pavilion.

A flash, and a mane of hair that would make anyone envious broke from the iron bars of the onlooking cage. A commanding shout declared that the blasphemous should watch their precious fuckers die first. The Handmaid felt time coil around like a clock spring waiting to be unleashed. The E%ecutor focused on the loyal follower once more. He shivered, time paused on the cusp of doing something futile and important.

The Handmaid raised her needles, and every perfect shot across every time line that the E%ecutor had ever known rippled through his arm muscles and down to his fingertips. The arrow flew true.

**> Watch time unwind (Signless Quest Dead End One)**

Once more the good loyal servant was congratulated. Once more, his doubts in his own love for a leader, in his certainty that he was hollow, were shoved aside. A blasephemous prisoner died, his followers were laid to waste—except for one very special small fry—and Alternia forgot the uprising.

Funny, the Handmaid thought, as time ground to a halt. One arrow, and suddenly a little red grub would go without a lusus, die without a lusus—probably a spider ate him—and the world goes on turning right into a dead end.

The boss growled and snarled and coughed, raging against this time he could not enter because he never existed. Clawed hands bit into the head of his cane, demanding that the little witch make it right. How can one heinous bitch of a kitten make such a difference?

**> Play the Innocent. Free the Signless. (Signless Quest part two)**

**> Be the narrator. Destroy the Pir8 Queen (Pirate Quest, part one)**

* * *

**(You Chose: > Be the narrator. Destroy the Pir8 Queen)**

She arrived in a blood splattered audience hall under swaying lights and dripping silk. A shark toothed seadweller vibrated with enough fury, enough fear, and the boundless optimism of the eternally thwarted, to be visible from the orbit of the moon, if emotion were a lighthouse.

"Don't forget," she prowled behind him, liking the way he jumped. "If all else fails, beg: 'Forgive me this, my virtue.' At the very least, you might get a laugh."

**> Be smug in the past, present, and future**

This timeline spun to a stop, with the smallest grain of sand caught in its gears. Because a despot laughed, a pirate queen died. The Handmaid reveled in the jester's head decorating a throne room sweeps later, when it's original owner finally outlived his usefulness. The saw toothed smile grinned for her as the Boss ground his own teeth. He couldn't seem to arrive when a crushed rebellion wasn't there already.

**> Rewind just to see what the boss is grumbling about**

On the shores of a rocky cove a rebel collapsed, exhausted. The handmaid inspected the would be corpse, with its tattered wings and brown drooling gashes. Someone ran into some legislacerators at the wrong time, in the wrong place. That he escaped surprised her, but it would be dawn soon, and with those wounds—

She was unaware of the presence until the shadow fell across her, just as in another time and place he had been completely unaware when she released an arrow for him. Funny, how small the history of Alternia could be. She looked up just as the other troll bent to inspect the body. In another time and place this bedraggled little insect had a bodyguard with deadly eyes, the Handmaid thought dreamily.

“Is he with y—” but the exiled executioner was speaking to an empty beach

**> Fast forward and reflect (Pirate Quest Dead End One)**

A soldier came to hide on a forgotten island, and slipped into obscurity. The king he spurned forgot him, the Empress he hated never knew his power. His rebellion sparkled for an instant and then fell into chaos, and died without a leader. All because the person who found him that day advised caution above action.

English needed that rebellion, just as he needed an earlier rebellion, and the Handmaid laughed to herself, knowing that such a little thing—one terrible rotten joke that had gone over well—was destroying all the possibilities in paradox space.

Even as Cue Ball gave out new repair orders to fix this mess (“Because some suckers have fated moments, pet, and you will not get in their way, _understand_?”), the Handmaid vowed never to let the pirate win.

**> Look Busy. Make the Archerdictator weep for days (Signless Quest, part one)**

**> Play the Innocent. Free the Signless. (Signless Quest part two)**

* * *

**(You chose: > Follow and Obey the Boss. Make the Rebellion happen - Dead End)**

The Handmaid knew it was easier to do what Doc Scratch and the Boss wanted. But the Demoness of Alternia never wanted to go for the easy route, and keeping the cracks of time spreading beyond the Boss' control was fine by her. No way was she going to let the boss win this one without a fight. A secretive fight that didn't look as though she was fighting at all, and really obeying, but a fight nonetheless.

**> Look Busy. Make the Archerdictator weep for days (Signless Quest, part one)**

**> Be the narrator. Destroy the Pir8 Queen (Pirate Quest, part one)**

* * *

**(You chose: > Play the Innocent. Free the Signless.)**

All right, so the Boss man wanted to make sure that the first religion fevered rebellion happened, and the Signless became revered? She would give him that. Give him that until he choked. Whatever the consequences of this little rebellion that the Boss and Cue Ball were tracking, her thirteenth sense told her pure suffering was the only way the world would keep tilting towards the instructions tossed into the void.

She crackled into this point in time in the full light of the sun. Under the shade of tall trees the guards were grumbling. She stopped time for them, well, for most of them. Their eyes could still track what she was doing, and comprehend what it meant when _this_ troll stepped across too hot gray rock and dark soil. It would probably do something very bad to their bodies, but all she needed was for one to survive long enough to report the rapturous terror—or whatever language these clowns preferred—they felt when she touched iron and the bars crumbled to rusted flakes.

Exhausted bloodshot eyes nearly swallowed by the grotesquely bright bruises of a recent beating stared up at her blankly.

“I—I know you,” a prophet croaked.

There were statues to her everywhere a carnival built a temple. Lowbloods whispered that she was the cull mistress who would end pain. The rebellious ones tried to strip her of the blood painting the bases of her statues, and the faithful considered her the only reward the dark carnival had to offer. The Handmaid ignored him. “Get out of here. You only will get so much time.”

A telepath bound with more dampers around his head than would ever have been needed to keep her more mundane arts in check nearly got whiplash as he whirled around like a dervish. “But they took Ma Maryam out of the sun. Where is—”

The prophet lunged for the green hem of the Handmaid's robe. “You have to save her!”

“I do not,” a cold smile split her face. “I don't have to do anything I don't want to.” After all, these sad wrecks did not have any control over her painless existence privileges. “Get going. When I leave, your guards will be able to move again.”

The prophet shouted furiously, but the green loving kitten the boss had spat at bounded to her feet, and grabbed the prophet like a rag doll. He yelled in pain as he went over her shoulder. Her hand pulled the psionic to his feet, and she dashed away without so much as a thank you.

Trolls raised by cat lusi, the Handmaid thought with exasperation. She set the guards to come back into full time synch in ten minutes, and left.

**> Observe your actions**

The Boss raged about how useless women were. The Signless' precious Disciple survived! Where was the cult?! Where was the legend?! The echoes of his deeds were supposed to shape new generations, and give rise to a grand rebellion that would place the eight ball in the right hands. There was a game that had to be played!

The Handmaid ignored the anger of a Lord incapable of fully incarnating. Let the fools enjoy the lives they had snatched from the jaws of English's history.

**> Get new orders**

Sadly, the confusion bred new orders. Get the rebellion to happen. Do that now. The Boss Man had never really learned how to be specific, luckily.

**> Pretend to be obedient. Watch the rebellion die. (Summoner Quest part one)**

**> See to the Doc's special pirate (Pirate Quest Dead End two)**

**> Look as though you care. Go bug the Signless about his legend (Signless Quest Part three)**

* * *

**(You chose: > Pretend to be obedient. Watch the rebellion die)**

The Handmaid walked through markets and watches trolls give speeches. In the capital, a speech was judged on its entertainment value. If the drama was beautiful, if spoken word was invoked, if troll Shakespeare would approve, if the Grand Highblood would laugh, then the orators were allowed to speak. The painted ones in the crowds rippled nervously, looking towards the statues and images of the dark sister, wondering if perhaps this was part of the herald's greater plan. But the voices of the restless did not fill them with the threat they felt sweeps ago. It was just a few speeches. Soldiers listened attentively, and broke up crowds if they got too large.

The confused landweller response made the Imperial teeth gnash. The Handmaid grinned victoriously in an audience chamber while the enraged seadweller lectured her pet clown before the court on ineptitude and being a boring little clown fish. Where was her awful devil fish when she needed the soldiers to take care of the cod damn dull speechifiers, huh?

Out of the corner of her eye she caught one of the soldiers in the throne room, all tight black armor and incredible horns, no wings this time, mouthing along to the imperial rant, and rolling his eyes, though there were more than a few smirks as the Highblood had all of his per-sole-nal failings described in irritated detail.

And when were they going to figure out a decent way to make psionics space worthy, huh? What was the point of building ships for seadwellers unless there was someplace for those ships to go where seatrolls couldn't?

At this, most of the more psychically inclined troll types in the throne room bristled, and the Highblood growled that Alternian earth had always been good enough for everyone. Surprisingly that made the Condesce laugh and she began to suggest that her little clown fish was just too afraid of heights to be ready to fly. Imperial noogies were things of regal embarrassment when both participants are thousands of sweeps old.

The guard, holding on to his ceremonial lance, began to chuckle at that. The Handmaid grinned, feeling a fated moment come undone in her thirteenth sense, and vanished, deciding not to whisper grim words about deserted beaches and lonely pirate queens in his ears.

**> Fast forward (Dead End)**

Because a mutant prophet lived and died happy and whole, no crabby lusus was made, and a little wriggler died. The Handmaid was beginning to wonder why any given timeline stopped ticking down to an all consuming arrival party whenever that happened. It never really concerned le Boss much, and the Doc was more interested in his special wriggling suckers.

The latest instructions were non-sensical gibberish, all about making sure that space travel happened, because there was a special meeting in the works. The Handmaid spit. A special meeting indeed. She could read between the lines. _Your fated moment is fast approaching, my dear._ But not in this timeline. She went back to a different moment in this special universe of peace.

**> Look as though you care. Go bug the Signless about his legend (Signless Quest Part three)**

**> See to the Doc's special pirate (Pirate Quest Dead End two)**

* * *

**(You chose: > See to the Doc's special pirate)**

The Signless never suffered, but a pirate did. She was hauled, bloody and unconscious before the jugement block. But in the crowd, the Handmaid of the Time Lord could feel the warped mind trying to put its pressure all over her, and knew the lolling head was just a sham. Luckily, the pirate would not have the time to manipulate her. She froze the crowd, and met the shocked legislacerator's gaze.

“Well, continue,” the Demoness told the half apostate follower of the dark carnival—never to find a true faith without a certain torturous sy6m9l. The Demoness disappeared as a perforated eye snapped open, and the pirate screamed invectives uselessly into her noose. That future was never going to be important.

**> Pretend to be obedient. Watch the rebellion die. (Summoner Quest part one)**

**> Look as though you care. Go bug the Signless about his legend (Signless Quest Part three)**

**> Check in on the funny soldier (Summoner Quest part two)**

* * *

**(You chose: > Look as though you care. Go bug the Signless about his legend)**

Why not take a vacation, while in one time the Boss was trying to patch up the reality he had broken—he was so proud of telling her that she was nothing but his instrument and tool, let him take responsibility for the failures that tool wrought—and in another Cue Ball was trying to hurry her demise? She found a cave done up in pleasing colors of fauna blood, and knitted curtains.

The prophet was sitting at the lip of the makeshift hive watching the moons set, and he jumped when she floated over to land beside him, staring at his nubby horns. What made this candy red wriggler so important?

It's you! I _know_ you.

I'm sure. Not that many sweeps have passed, after all. Even with your lifespan, you can't have gone completely ga-ga yet.

I don't—you know, that's not a very kind way to refer to people, of any age.

… Do I look like I'm in the business of kindness?

You could be. It's not a good idea to take people at face value. So, you could be pretty kind.

Never.

Remember, I let your precious guardian get taken by pirates.

…

…

Go away.

So, you've had a good life. Well, you had a life. Glad to see you never wasted it with fuck all after I gave it back to you.

Go. Away.

It's my vacation, I get to do what I want.

Yeah! That's always what its about for you! Get to prove your independence and how great and powerful you are. And I'd be cool with that, but you can't seem to do it. Ever. No matter the world or the time or the place. Without hurting someone else. No wonder that nutso clown worships you.

It's not very kind using those words about someone you don't even know.

I don't know? _I_ , out of everyone on this _planet_ , don't know?! Argh! Has anyone told you you're really really terrible? 'Cause I think I've got to lay that truth on you. You are an awful horrible person, you take cruel ass delight in playing the cool detached mysterious stranger, but you're. Just. Awful. And what's worse, you know how to be better than that. I know you know better than that. But you're just all wrapped up in your angry hate on for the world and so bitter you can't see how good it can be!

Stop waving your hands around under my nose like that. I'm going to end up dislocating something of yours otherwise. Now, listen, short stuff—

No! You listen, you ornery, trouble-making, viscous _witch_ , I'm sweeps older than you and coming to terms with peaceful retirement, so you'd better listen up right hard.

You're not.

I'm not what?

Sweeps older than me.

One of us has a bad back and their gums ache during the perigee when the wind comes up from the south on account of missing a ton of teeth, and a trick shoulder that's never healed right, and I know that one isn't you, it's me! So what do you say to that, grub-nuggins?

That I watched a little tyrian blooded wiggler get found by a white tentacled terror who mutters in her sleep. I watched the the little wriggler build her fleet. I fought her when she came on land, just to give what paltry resistance the land dwellers could muster a chance to kneel, submit, and obey. I watched her empire fall in flaming meteorites and one long glub. Don't you tell me who's older, you grumpy little pebble.

…

Well. I thought you were laying down some truth. A sermon of truth, perhaps.

You didn't leave me much dramatic room for a sermon. Let me see if I got a homily on how, once upon a time

Once upon a time

…

Mind if I ramble?

You're going to do it anyway.

I'm sure... I can remember, things used to be different, and we all used to be friends. Sort of. Because we could be, we lived in a world where we could be friends. That was the difference, and it was a really great difference like how snorf spice on a crawly pile makes for the best meal, and without it, you've got a meal serving apparatus with gray wriggling tuberbug larvae on it, and you know that the best you can hope for is not horking it up later. See what I mean?

… No.

Ugh. It's like

For the interests of this conversation, assume that I have no connection with anything you know. I grew up on licorice candies and space vacuum, okay? The first lusus I ever saw is complaining of her hunger somewhere off shore right now.

You're ruining the best similes in paradox space, you realize.

Let's say there are some people out there, a small group of trolls who can't seem to stop running into each other, no matter how hard they try. And in one time line, they were allowed to be friends, and in another timeline they weren't. How's that for a simile?

It sucks. I don't think that's even a metaphor.

But, yeah, you're getting my picture, I guess. I made it with way more picturesque language than you, but, you're getting it. Anyway, we all could be friends, even high bloods like … um … there was a really unfortunate seadweller, and he was pretty nice, I think. I hear he's some kind of hotshot cruel admiral off pirate hunting, or something. Anyway, he could have been friends with lowbloods like us.

Actually, if you're talking about the grain of sand I think you're talking about, in a few sweeps time I'm going to get him into a rather unpleasant change in career, if I choose to do it again, but carry on.

… Hey, what did I say about keeping your hand out of my face?

I can see your eyes glowing. Do you seriously think you can work any mental mojo on me?

You know, I was going to say you used to be nice and good, but, I think I'm seeing something else about all that, what with vision sight being 48/12 or something like that. Maybe it's not possible to be good when people believe it's the only thing you can be.

Argh. I don't need epiphanies and revelations. Not now. I'm done with that shit.

Well, I've got a thirteenth sense I don't know what to do with, so we're even.

…

You could have saved her, and you didn't.

I could have saved a lot of people. There's this soldier boy I keep running into and … Is this how you treat your savior, you insufferable jackass? Nag them about stuff they don't need to hear?

I should be saying that to you! I know who you were, after all. I think … you made this, didn't you? I remember …

This isn't as fun as I thought it would be. Bye.

Hey! Give me five minutes and I'll get to the heart of your personal failings.

I watched that happen to someone recently. It's much more fun to be the spectator.

Leave it. I know when to find you, beetle breath.

She left, feeling entirely too peaceful for someone fighting Lord English, and entirely too furious with a few hollow words.

**> Cheat the Signless. Get some revenge.**

It wasn't much to go on. The puke of a seadwellwer was important somehow? Right? In another time and place they all had been friends. Yeah. Right.

She rewound time. Who cared what the pirate did or didn't do? The legislacerator could take care of her, no problem. With vicious energy she thrust a bumbling tool into the path of English's history, again and again leaving him to be the spanner in the works of the great clock.

The Boss bellowed, at last, finally figuring it out, and demanding that she stay away from that worthless wreck before he actually stopped the Cue Ball's plans from going ahead. The Handmaid bowed to conceal her righteous victory. Maybe she had not found the reality that destroyed English, but she had discovered that the little group the prophet saw were the keys to closing off every timeline he could enter.

She had other trolls to see and other times to change.

**> See to the Doc's special pirate (Pirate Quest Dead End two)**

**> Check in on the funny soldier (Summoner Quest part two)**

**> Do what you've always wanted to do (Sea Troll Quest dead end)**

* * *

**(You chose: > Check in on the funny soldier)**

In realities that did without the cult of the Signless, the rebellion sputtered along. But in this one, without the death of the Legislacerator at a certain time, in a certain place, a certain amount of order was imposed on the reigning chaos. The messiahs had a new respect for law and reason, or maybe it was another form of caprice instituted by the ruler to mask some terrible truth. Law was only cruelty dressed in the trappings of authority.

It made the Handmaid smirk as she visited the temples in their sanguine glory, and made comments to no one about the fact that they always got the horns wrong. She knew possibilities and there never could be a world or time where friendship with a painted ogre consumed by power and trickery was a possibility. Even if a senile prophet was sure, the living proof of his inaccuracy reigned on high at the squidling's whim.

Still, she watched, with something approaching interest—given that in almost every reality she had ever visited, even the ones where a humorless fish climbed over his body, thanks to her interference, to become the latest tyrian pet, she remained the dark sister at the center of his carnival—as the festivities and holy days were influenced with chaos made to order, and some little justice was involved. Sometimes she would appear and topple the institution with her power, just for a small laugh. Some insects should appreciate the ironies she never needed to master. Even when she repaired those little loops, and went back to wash the rust red blood from her hands—sometimes also purple—she was never sure if it was flattery or destruction visited upon her across the sweeps. She could appreciate the masterless ironies, too.

But she did not honestly care that much, how the top of the hierarchy progressed. As she had said, there was a funny solider boy, with a rakish grin and horns of quite fascinating proportions. In this timeline he was subdued. Proud to serve Alternia—whatever he thought Alternia was. The Handmaid could see very little point to his patriotism, but he respected the laws, even the unjust ones that at another time would have those teeth grinding against terribly uncurse-like curses.

Maybe he could be her tool, now that the first one had been retired. He was supposed to lead an inspiring rebellion of strife and conflict? Well, she could work with that. The reality where that E%ecutor had found him suggested he could be lead by the nose into other paths, even if he was stubborn.

**> Because it worked so well with the Signless: Get to know the soldier better.**

She waited until his unit was recalled to the capital, knowing that no one was likely to be interested in bothering with their cavalcaptain in the middle of the day when he had been traveling over half a planet. Of course, the Handmaid did not have the firmest grasp on things like why a unit might be recalled, and she crackled into the timeline just as there was a knock on the temporary hive door, and a nervous, downright terrified voice called out that the Cavalcaptain was wanted in the Grand Pavilion.

Unimpressed with her timing, the Handmaid was about to step into a better suited time and place, when her thirteeth sense tingled in her horns, and she followed, like a ghost, the tired soldier with his very nervous escort.

The Grand Pavilion was less impressive in day time, the sanguine paint less vivid without the bright lights and constant music. The Handmaid almost sneered at the poor show it made, and the soldier did sneer at the performance of cringing subjuggulators, half of them looking terrified, and half giving him faint flashes of sympathy, and most trying to ignore the lateness of the hour, and the blazing green sun ripping through the silken shrouds.

The sneer faltered just a little, as he was led before the throne, and the temporary prince the space loving sea queen had installed there. Any sneer would falter in response to the widening grin that promised something horrible, but was content to leave the promise up to the imagination.

A hand wave dismissed the goons, and the Handmaid, with no crowd to mingle invisibly with, found a station behind a pillar.

“Some little motherfucker's been keeping secrets,” the Highblood sounded delighted.

The Handmaid wondered if his delight would be the same if he knew that most often, those secrets ended with him cast from his throne, and made the righteous carnival burn out. Maybe she should one day encourage the rebellion, just to watch the towers tremble and fall, even if it brought the Boss' arrival that much closer. She could rewind and fix it later, after she had her fun.

“If this is about the extra comments on my report about the Farwall massacre, I don't think my disgust was very secret. If at all. I mean, if I was unclear, well, I wouldn't ever want to be unclear. I tried to use all language appropriate to reports, as per subsection Alpha Sea, 'no fresh little glubber is to render reports that only make sense as spoken word poems. Good fish puns are encouraged.' If the lack of the fish pun is the problem, of course, I'll fix it. But for non-secrets and clarity's sake, I think I kinda nailed it with that report. Really, there aren't many ways to take 'murderous clown stooge' other than as intended.”

“That just depends upon how flexible you are, my lying soldier.”

Ugh, this was boring. The Handmaid decided never to listen to what her horns thought ever again—

“See you're wearing all that armor, even in broad daylight,” the Highblood continued in a purr.

“I sunburn easily,” but now there was a note of nervousness in the cheerful voice.

“Then let us see you burn. Take off that lance proofing, and do a pirouette for me. Or something. In the sunlight. There's a sweet little beam over there.”

Ah. So in this timeline that would be how the rebellion was going to end. Wings revealed, and plucked by a murderous clown stooge. It was almost a pity, the Handmaid concluded. She had wanted to see them once without gore taking the shine and delicacy from the scales.

The soldier cleared his throat. “Uh, I did just say I sunburned easily, and that report was not, in any way, shape, or form, a black solicitation. I just was observing the situation you made me and my division create. Like you ordered.”

“The nice thing about those reporting rules is that they allow _me_ , the high commander, to determine how to punish those fresh little glubbers who put too much into their reports. Now strip, and bear those little secrets to me, or you're gonna get an audience of willing helpers.”

Silence bloomed. Then a rustle. “Fuck you.” Rustle rustle. “Why bother with this? You obviously know, so just haul me off for the cull and be done with it. Who told you?” Rustle thwap.

The Handmaid hadn't looked around her column yet. But the soft inhale from the throne made her peek around the stone, sure that all the dark attention was focused on the soldier.

His wings were magnificent, fluttering weakly as white bandage bindings fell to join the fighting jacket and undershirt on the floor. A bright bronze blush crept up the back of his neck. The Handmaid felt an unpleasant jolt, realizing that she was imagining walking her fingers up the dip of his spine until she could feel the heat of his blood staining his gray skin.

“If I were you, I'd learn how not to go out for flights when you're upset. No matter how high you go, people might see and get their righteous undies in a jealous bunch, hmmm? Well, well, what a freak you are, mothy little reaper. How long has that secret been hanging around your back?” the admiration was just as evident as the cruel smile, painted in wide white.

She wanted to see this the right way. Just once. Something lurched in the Handmaid. Those horns, that hair, the wings. She wanted to see all of that in the moonlight. She wanted to fly with him into a fight. She wanted to see him crush this fool on his throne.

**> Leave.**

She left. The outcome was unimportant, but each time she returned to later moments, there was a guard standing by the throne, wrapped up in black armor, and looking as though he could kill the king lounging there—if he wasn't so busy upsetting the plans of other laughssassins to reign from the blood soaked center of the carnival.

She wondered if the Highblood knew his guard spoke to the tentacular guardian of the planet, and then realized, as there were no new heiresses at this time, and no imperial highnesses on planet while the raging queen tried to bring her ambitions to new horizons, that someone must know. Maybe the soldier waited at the right hand as part of a deal struck that night. Or, maybe (probably) it had been the Condesce's plans all along to trap this once funny soldier into keeping Alternia un-glubbed forever, and the Highblood was merely benefiting from his patroness' plans (the chittering thief of an empress had always annoyed the Handmaid, but even she could admit that of the two tyrants the empress was far more likely to do the smart thing. She was certainly more interesting).

The way the clock stopped in this timeline with its happy prophets, dead pirates and sullied soldiers grated on her, as though the gears were pushing into her skin. Maybe this was what the Boss felt when things were unsatisfactory.

**> Do what you've always wanted to do (Sea Troll Quest dead end)**

**> Consult the Prophet. You'll probably regret it (Signless Quest part four)**

* * *

**(You chose: > Do what you've always wanted to do)**

Kill your Condesce early and often, the Handmaid thought, grinning at the screeching squidling just before she unwound time all around the vicious Empress.

There had always been something irritating about this proud woman, even before the plans of replacement were in the works on the green sun. As she drove her thorns into the eyes through the goggles, she almost said “see you at the fated moment, pet.”

Cue Ball was a shitty influence. Sexless fucker.

A new timeline and this time, the Handmaid wanted to pull that hair, just to see if it was alive. But when she got a trident in her arm, and a fishy lecture about her pointless existence, no little low blood was going to save this traitorous caretaker, something broke inside her head. She spat, waiting only long enough for the sticky gob to land between the shaking anger of the Empress—the way her eyes flashed with magenta looked beautiful against her gold eyelashes—and the chained jadeblood.

But she vanished in a crack of time, because the Condesce was not supposed to meet her yet. The Boss' bellowing across the universes of paradox space was clear on that point.

**> Seriously. Wreck those plans. Never let her rise.**

The Demoness picked up threads of time and ruined them around her thorns. Tyrian blood filled the water and a tenacious Heiress was fed to the lusus she was supposed to steal the land for. There were no crushed rebellions when there was nothing to rebel against.

She was almost caught for that one. The Cue Ball said he might need to look at her life privileges, and who was allowed to take them from her. Some tools are more useful than you, Dear Girl. Do not snarl. Do not be rude. We have an important guest who needs to be at home when he arrives.

**> Don't give in.**

The Handmaid gave in. She popped in and out of the timelines all over, killing herself off, or closing the moments so that she could never arrive. She thought of it as practice against Lord English. Her blood pump was working in over time, and something was consuming her. Where had this sudden destructive interest come from?

**> Consult the Prophet. You'll probably regret it (Signless Quest part four)**

* * *

**(You chose: > Consult the Prophet. You'll probably regret it)**

Her preferred doomed time line still existed. The Signless jumped up as she appeared.

Not AGAIN.

Oh, I've come by recently.

Yeah. Twice by my count. In the last fifteen minutes. And last time was really weird. Even for you

Don't talk about it.

But

I know it's hard to keep from filling the air with your nonsense, but trust me, far fewer headaches all around.

…

Trust me. If you can. The me who visited you and was acting strangely hasn't happened yet, and she didn't warn you that the me now was going to visit, did she? No. Well, she was giving you a little time without a headache, so shut your slack load grapper and invite me in or something.

… I should just put this down to Demon Magycks, then?

Clockwork, technically. Hmm, the moons are taking rather long to set, aren't they?

Yeah …

… About what you said: It's been a good life, you know. Sometimes I think it could have been a lot better because I remember a time when my biggest concerns were things like... if the people following me rebubbled? Repeated? cool stuff I had to say. And they were all good memories. Well, not good, but

I can sense all the realities and all the timelines, and whatever it is that you're thinking of … it never happened. It never can happen. There is no way I can make it happen. And I can make anything in any timeline happen.

…

It happened!

Much as I wish it was possible, you can't make things change by yelling at them. If that was true, the heinous scream queen would have been cruising in space for sweeps already.

You don't get it! It has to be able to happen! Everyone should have … WHAT WAS THE POINT?! If those dreams … I wasn't leading … I didn't want to lead. That wasn't supposed to happen. But I can't have gotten all those people killed because ... I had vivid dreams.

You got them killed? Hah. I got them killed. The Condesce got them killed. A foolish pirate chaser got them killed. That damn clown highblood got them killed. The executioner got them killed. An arrogant pirate who will never amount to anything got them killed. Your caretaker got them killed. Your disciple got them killed. That psiionic friend of yours got them killed. In the future?! A neophyte will lend an horrendous order to the nightmare. A good soldier will do things that would curl even those nubs of horns because that's the world he was pupated into.

It's never just one thing. Or one person.

All my life has been about finding that perfect moment when I can change things to destroy the biggest monster. I still haven't found it. Your living is so far the biggest impact I've made. Even killing off that foul sea queen only mucks with the plans, it doesn't actually devastate the reality of that blasted green sun and the whole disgusting mess!

…

Wow.

You know how you keep saying I don't know how to shut up?

You've got quite the rant sac hiding in you.

Shut up, grub butt.

Well, that didn't make me feel much better, but. Well, I think you've got what Mi calls hidden talents in the pale direction. Deeply hidden talents.

… That is a compliment?

Generally. Yeah. Pale's a pretty good quadrant, according to everybody. Well, they're all pretty good quadrants … I mean what's the point of having quadrants if they're not good things for lots of people?

Um. You know, except in all of those counter examples typified by our society that force lots of people into doing horrible things because of unquestioned assumptions, and wow... I kinda just had a revelation right here that quadrants are pretty artificial, even when you take imperial drones out of the equation. Um. I think I owe Meulin an apology for an argument we had sweeps ago.

So maybe quadrants aren't … maybe pale isn't what you need to feel all balanced out, and you're not in need of any of it, either. But, look, I just meant: It feels good to share your life with somebody.

Does it now?

… This is one of those you don't get what it means to grow up like a troll moments, isn't it?

Probably. Though … balance might be nice. I guess. I've been doing some … unbalanced things recently.

Who did you maim this time?

Which time?

Don't you raise your eyebrows at me! Man, the more things change, the more you stay the same.

So, in your perfect happy universe of friendship, I maimed people?

No. Well, some of the visions, memories, whatever. I don't know. I thought I saw you do some pretty disturbing stuff.

Is octopus head one of your special group of buddies?

…

I would have heard if you killed the Condesce. The number of supremely Faygo drunk subjuggulators alone would have tipped me off.

Not in this timeline. And you didn't answer the question. What's the sea cow to me?

…

…

Enough with the glowy eyes, Bugjuice!

…

Well, you really, um, have a lot to work out with that. In fact, you probably shouldn't interact with her if you can help it.

She's going to kill me. And I want to fuck up everything that matters to her a hundred times over before that happens. I wanna see her writhing on the end of her own trident. I really want to pull her hair.

Someone's got a black fling all planned and purr-pared then?

!!

When did you show up?

Probably about the time I yelped when you disappeared the second time. I told you, you were acting weird.

We're not talking about that. Less headaches all around, remember?

Who are you?

She's one of us. Sort of. This is the Demoness of the Dark Carnival.

…

I expected more shock and awe.

I remember you.

Oh, not this again. I was just telling your short stick friend here that there's no way his little possibilities could ever have existed.

We can still make them happen here. But no, I meant I remembered you from the day you freed us.

And you're going to join in on the nag fest about whoever I didn't save for you last time? You got to keep your fashion challenged psionic, this time around.

You think you know us? You think you know what we can accomplish when we put heart and soul into something?

I know what you will accomplish in a few hundred sweeps, and all it will be is a good soldier getting made into a pet, and the raging queen slowly accelerating into the stars. Nothing changes. Nothing gets better. Your words won't have reached a dragon because you _lived_ and there is nothing volatile, nothing to make you keep the soul of the message alive. Just a near non-believer with nothing but the law to cling to, and it's a strong hard law that she will create because a pirate died and she lived, and none of you understand how useless everything we do ultimately is.

She's got a bit of a rant sac, if you let her get going.

You try being frustrated, time and time again by your own manipulations, knowing nothing in the long run matters because the rules of Paradox Space are hard and cruel and there is a foul green glitch in the system.

I need to know what will kill English! You let something slip last time that was almost useful, and I need to know how I have to push and pull and manipulate everything into a loop that kills itself out in the end and lets this whole stupid planet run smoothly into a pleasant dead end, rather than the doom that is coming!

The problem with time is that time is big.

You know... doom isn't my thing. I prefer trying to do everything possible even in the face of on coming doom. You got anything, candy sweetie?

You've get a lot of nicknames, don't you?

Hers are cuter than yours. I wish … well, I wish a lot of people were here.

You know what? Fine! See how much you like a world where your caretaker isn't enslaved. She's one of the Doc's special projects, but why not? I'll happily forgo a few breathing privileges just for the fun of seeing what she can do with all her fated moments cast asunder. You'll never know what the world will be like, but why not?

**> Disappear. Fake out the Cue Ball. (Pirate Quest Part three)**

* * *

**(You chose: > Disappear. Fake out the Cue Ball.)**

She had said she wouldn't interfere with the hotshot fishface again. Whatever.

She delighted in his expression. It froze in one instant of horror as the harpoon gun in his hand heated beyond the cooking temperatures of its deadly rays. She smashed every instant of its firing, past and future into his trigger finger in rapid succession, and every instant of its clogging or failing into the barrel and then spun the time back to the moment when it was cast. The resulting explosion was a sad blorp of molten creation.

Turning to the astonished jade lady, the Handmaid did a spectacular job of, she was sure, looking as though she didn't think that holding splashing metal frozen in time was a pretty neat trick. Sometimes the things that she could do almost made the job worth it. “Let us take over a pirate fleet.”

**> Be the puppeteer. Install a new pirate queen.**

She smiled to herself as Mindfang walked the plank. There was something absurdly satisfactory in getting to dismantle one telepath's pathetic mockery of the Condesce' empire in so many different ways across the universes. Maybe, if she saw the angry prophet again, he'd tell her it was a quadrant or something. Maybe an echo of jealousy. She would never know.

Maybe it was just that she disliked self righteous spiderlips searching for a crack in her mind all the damn time.

As the former slave turned to deal with the former pirate crew (with a lot of cuffing and shouting that just because they had come back to their senses didn't mean that they would be impolite) the Handmaid considered her job done, and went to check on this timeline's version of the signless prophet.

**> Ignore the bellowing. The boss will only fume, and you have important things to be doing.**

Unfortunately, the Handmaid could not ignore the bellowing. It was a high gargling unhappy bellow of a Time Lord finding something truly wrecked, and not knowing how it happened. The Cue Ball dragged her back to her beginning time by the ear to flip through the photo albums.

“You couldn't stay away from the hopeless—ah, hapless Dualscar could you?” the Doc tutted against the backdrop of invectives from sweeps ahead of them calling her everything from bitch to whore and back again, never really altering or showing more imagination than that. “Admittedly, killing him a little earlier, or a little later doesn't make a huge difference. Normally I would congratulate you. Maryam is a particularly ingenious little tool.”

Normally at this juncture the broom would be out, and her nose would be thrust into the middle of the scrap book. This time the Doc just kept turning the pages worriedly. “I don't understand it. The game even is played in this timeline. The mutant blood is a little different, but—there is nothing wrong, per say. Just a person who is a little more patient and chooses a different frog.”

A frog. It all came down to a choice in frogs. She had cut off the head of a pirate group that normally plagued Alternia for sweeps and whole green blood generations, and the major difference in result was a choice in _frogs_?

The Handmaid _hated_ time. She didn't know what frogs were, but she hated them, too. She hated English, she hated the Doc, and she hated her own thirteenth sense for rushing her into this timeline without bothering to warn her that the choice was so pointless and insignificant.

She wrenched her ear away, and began to flip through the scrap book with the energy of a coffee fueled rage bot. There, let _that_ simile stump lippy prophets the universes everywhere with its amazingness. There was the rise of the Dolarosa, now the Piratess, the undisputed ruler of the seas. Here was the revolution among the psiionics that she pressed for, shaking the foundations of the tyrian empire. There was the end of the caste system—only it wasn't the end, more like the lingering struggle, where grubs were separated based upon mental ability and given caretakers appropriate to their needs on one half of the planet. There was the Condesce brought low before the throne—and refusing to bow. The Handmaid would have smiled.

Time played falsely to her will, caught in scraps and clippings that the Cue Ball used to keep everything organized. But really, there was no change.

**> Find something to be pleased with.**

She snatched an article about the keeper of the imperial lusus from the mess of pages. There he was, wings exposed and never hidden in this timeline. It was just a small biography piece, with a picture of that devastating smile, so much kinder without the former hints of death lingering at the edges of the teeth.

So he had flown in this timeline the boss was screaming that she close. So, that one gut choice had made a difference. A real difference that was not just frogs and follies. Well, she could keep that loop going, even as she kept the Signless alive. There was a timeline when people were basically happy, pulled from the sun seared ages of Alternia by an angry whim.

**> Read the Article.**

She didn't want to. Not with the Doc tapping his foot nervously, and peering over her shoulder to ask if she had found the problem. She looked at it anyway.

“Bored, mostly,” Nitram (age 19 sweeps) replies. “It's kinda, eh, not fun, being the parent of an angry fish all your life. But Blobby's pretty nice. No, I'm not going to bother pronouncing it properly. My mouth wasn't made to speak eldrich abomination. But it's just sort of, day after day, rounding up unclaimed lusi, you know? Just a bit samey, after a while. I'm grateful of course. I'd never not be grateful. But. I think there's gotta be more out there. You know. Anyway, that's why a guy like me is signing the petition for protesting power based jobs. It probably isn't going to do anything, but a little helps, right? I mean, right? Why are you guys taping this again?”

For posterity.

**> Think about what you've done.**

Once, while she was pulling apart the threads of time, desperately trying to strangle the Condesce, or do _something_ to feel as though she was doing anything, she let everything happen. She let the chaos reign, never putting quite enough challenges in front of her replacement. In two hundred sweeps, an Empresses had risen. She rotted on her throne, reeking of fish, disinterested in everything, but the outliers just like her.

In the end, the Condesce destroyed the eye crackling telekinetic with her prodding. The cherry red blood at the base of her throne would have pleased a different monarch who was never needed to appease the cowed landdwellers. The sad Dolarosa. who could never be the Piratess in that timeline, became the last oddity, played with until bright magenta blood was sought by hungry fangs.

The Handmaid had considered everything from a distance, enjoying the dying writhing timeline where there was no end in sight. But she had been disappointed, too, at the outcome. The victory had been hollow. Not because English had forced her to challenge the colossal pride of the Condesce, but because she knew how bright and manipulative that one track mind could be at its best, and the rotting timeline was not the best. Not by a long shot.

**> Realize**

There were only so many timelines that could produce what she wanted out of this troll with the nice horns and his magical wings.

There were many more that gave her the Sea Troll she despised with that secret dark place in her blood pump.

There was only one timeline where she got the glory and the fire of both. And that was the timeline the one that the boss wanted.

She vanished from the bright green hall. She needed to find the time to think this through. To take time by the horns, she had to hold her breath and take everyone's lives into her own hands. Starting with her own.

**> Arrive to some conclusions.**

She floated in over the Signless's head.

“I'm about to do a very stupid thing. Stop me. Give me a metaphor. Tell me the needs of the many out weigh my own curiosity. Tell me there's no universe where evil gets defeated when the fighters let down their guard.”

The Signless gaped at her. “What? But, I, you... you just left?”

“I'm not your average visitor. Now, bring me into balance. Make this decision of mine make sense.”

“I. What? I'm not,” her host continued with the dumbfounded act.

Sighing, the Handmaid resumed her seat on his left hand side. “There's a universe out there with people who rise to the height of their glory and fall like stars across the sky. It's not a timeline where we are all friends. It's not ever going to be a good timeline, and it will spawn worse. It is a timeline that will only know your dreams as the smallest moment at the very end of its existence, and chances are, it will still get everything wrong. Tell me that I shouldn't make it happen.”

The Signless stared at her, stupefied. “You are going to do this? Because?”

“I don't want people I like to be bored.”

“And, you're going to make it happen,” he added slowly. “Do you think you'll get what you want?”

Damara Megido, Witch of Time in another universe that only he knew, shrugged. “The small things, like a butterfly blocking out the sun? Probably. The big things, like a serpent choking on reality and dying? Probably not. But there's still a chance.”

“If there's a chance, go for it,” The Signless leaned on his cane, gazing at the setting moons. “Chances are always worth taking.”

Because he signed his death warrant, because the only universe where her perfect scenario could be saved needed him to destroy his own codes in anger, because the decision she had just made would obliterate this nubby pipsqueak, the Handmaid leaned over and hugged him around the shoulders. “Thanks for suffering for me.”

“What under the moons do you think you're doing?!” he exploded, but she was already sweeps away.

**> End this.**

We all know the story. A prophet rose and fell shouting his wrath and letting it reverberate across the stars. A cult flourished in his wake, whispering of hope. A pirate did not die, and a novice with a dragon did. The dragon and pirate met again, sweeps later, on the shore of a rocky coast, and an exiled soldier pushed himself between them. They began a revolution, and at the end the Empress of Alternia launched a fleet to take every adult troll off world, as far from the whispers of her lusus as she could manage.

Then some children played a game, and that was how the world ended.

Amid the wreckage of the flagship, all goo and sparks, for the last time in her life, the Demoness of Alternia gave the Psiioniic the death he wished for—something quicker than the last few echoes of a glub lingering in his think pan, slowly rupturing him. At the tap of a golden trident against the remains of the bright red hull, she turned, ready to meet, for the first time in this world, Her Imperial Condescension.

There were many realities, with many ends and beginnings, and little influences that tugged or pulled them this way and that. As the Handmaid drew her thorns, she knew this reality had begun with the flash of tattered butterfly wings on a beach a thousand sweeps and realities ago, and would end with that trident that she had so long desired.

Maybe, even if they were now stuck in a reality counting down to the arrival of the Lord, there was a chance that other bright butterflies would take to the air and soar against the sun.


End file.
